


The Sour Dove

by Spylace



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Amnesia, Because it's the Winter Soldier, Canon-Typical Violence, Dubious Consent, M/M, Magical Healing Cock, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Sorry Not Sorry, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier Umbrella Warning, implied prostitution
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-16 10:28:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7264276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spylace/pseuds/Spylace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two days can take the shine off any marriage. By his second year of college, T’Challa is bored. </p><p>A chance encounter changes everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Two days can take the shine off any marriage. By his second year of college, T’Challa is bored.

He is at a fundraiser promoting something he doesn’t care to remember. After the second glass of dog piss Americans call champagne, he is ready to call it a day. It would be terribly rude of him of course. But his hosts will not take offense. He is a prince. There are always more parties to attend, people to meet and hands to shake. His plus one pouts at her generous endowments before conceding a brief, insincere nod.

His lips curl in bitter amusement as he slides a twenty across the oak counter. The scotch swirls in his mouth before going down like lava. He is about to ask for a refill when a person sits down next to him, elbow braced against the counter.

“Hi there.” The stranger says, nursing a drink of his own. “I’m James.”

James is young. Painfully young in the way his off-the-rack two-piece sits on his frame. But T’Challa is inspired to take a second look and a third and he thinks he understands why people might take notice. He can feel the weight of the room pressing down on him like a storm front and James stares back at him with an edged smile. The man is out of place as a bird-of-paradise in a flock of doves. The cheap polyester makes T’Challa want to tear it off like Christmas wrapping and see what is beneath.

He realizes that James is waiting and grunts, “T’Challa” before setting aside his glass. “You do not seem like the type to be here alone James.”

James laughs.

“That’s probably the second nicest thing anyone’s said about me.”

“What was the first?”

James hums and leans forward.

T’Challa steadies him instinctively when he sees the barstool wobble and his mind grasps what his hand does not. James’ left arm is an empty sleeve. His fingers catch the thin fabric and the pound of flesh. He feels the other man’s ribs flutter as he huffs against his neck, plucking at his pulse.

A few attendees, men mostly, but a good number of women eye them closely. T’Challa listens to their hushed breaths as they wonder how much James is for the hour, for the night as though he is an object to be bought and paid for and his stomach clenches with the realization that yes, he wants that. He wants to buy James.

“Hey.” James says gravely, resting his hand on the back of his head. His touch is light. Not a claim or a possession but a promise nonetheless. “Wanna see something nice?”

T’Challa fixes James’ tie. It’s ugly and yellow and should be burned on the spot but it highlights the other man’s throat nicely and cuts off his air.

Restraint would theoretically please Nareema who is too busy tonight to keep an eye on her wayward prince. But T’Challa has been complacent too long. He is a leopard whose claws have dulled. The smile that unveils his face is unkind and James does not deserve it.

“Lead the way.”

 

“You know, I did want to show you something.” James gasps when T’Challa sucks a bruise behind his ear, raking the soft skin with his teeth for his impudence. They grind against a portrait of a woman in red, a scarlet woman, a scandalous woman and T’Challa thinks, a scandal indeed, because he’s got a man, in many ways a boy, pinned to the wall. A boy who offers no resistance, no protests, no excuses as the million-dollar canvas warps around his body, freeing it from the heavy, wooden frame. There are no laws against homosexuality in Wakanda but here, in a country cut off from its basest desires, James is a thrill to behold. He merely grunts when T’Challa samples his lips, smashing their teeth together in pink glitter.

“Didn’t take you for a whiskey man neither.” James observes the next time they come up for air, far too chatty for his peace of mind. T’Challa decides that James looks best on his knees and takes a flask from his jacket pocket.

“Drink.” He orders when James visibly hesitates. No doubt this is not the first time he’s been offered a drink tonight. It’s the kind of thing T’Challa is always leery of but he wants, he _needs_ , James to take it. The memories of Wakanda manifests as a physical ache faster he can allow. He wants James to taste like sugar cane and liquor. James who is white and blue eyed, hair lip like the feathered tassels of a widowbird makes him homesick and the idea is so ludicrous T’Challa closes his teeth viciously on the bob of the other man’s throat.

It’s very likely the night will end in his fifth trip to the emergency room to have his stomach pumped but he does not care. Not even the threat of Nareema can keep him from this as James takes a slow pull from the neck. And another, then another. Their mouths are imperfect things and amber liquor spills freely down the dimpled chin. James chases the stray droplets down T’Challa’s shirt. Licking the amber pearls off the seams of his body as buttons are pulled apart one by one.

T’Challa thumbs the edge of his burst-red mouth and licks into it, sucking the taste of plastic like an addict. He drags James’ hand down to cup himself and it’s perfect. James is perfect. The work-roughened hand feels fantastic on his cock as his foreskin catches on the callouses and back, dotting precum on the pale wrist. Hazy with alcohol, he grabs the back of James’ neck and pushes down.

To his credit, James takes him like a pro. Eyes wet behind his eyelashes, mouth split from the unexpected intrusion. He half expects someone to stumble in on their tryst. Following the noise they make. T’Challa does not care who sees as long as everyone does and knows that he’s been here. James is his.

But no one comes and he wraps his hand around the yellow tie and pulls, distressing the yellow fabric. James lets out a grunt as his air is cut off. He just kneels there with his mouth open for T’Challa to fuck into.

His toes curl at the thought. T’Challa is at the wrong angle to take advantage of the swoop of James’ neck but he moves his hand to the back of the man’s head and presses down on the bruise which colors spectacularly behind his ear. He thrusts deeper and deeper and James grinds out these wet, filthy noises which are like a kick to his teeth. James rakes the hide from his lower back, his right hip bereft for his hand’s absence.

His breath is a boat cast on rough waters as he comes in the boy’s mouth.

When his cock slips from his mouth, James sits like a wreck on shore, a palm pressed against the crotch of his pants. As deft as he is, he can’t quite manage the zipper by himself. T’Challa thinks that it would be immeasurably cruel of him to leave the boy as is. Approval rumbles in his throat as James parts his knee for the slightest touch. But when he tugs at the belt buckle, the twinkle of it like a lock on a cage, James’ hand comes up viper fast and holds him there. James rocks into his slack hand, desperate, breathy little moans gathered on his tongue like gems for the taking as he seals their mouths together, exploring every nook and cranny for hints of coffee, gum and salt. James shudders and groans, bucks into his wrist as he wraps an arm around T’Challa’s neck. T’Challa peels back a collar and laves at the patches of what tastes like scars. The scrap of yellow fall away and James curls outwardly, moaning in pain and arousal as he is untucked from his trousers. T’Challa rubs the little pearls of jizz back into his slit, denying him release.

James lets out a kittenish whimper and T’Challa lays him down.

He wants to see what James looks like when he comes.

 

James finishes off the rest of T’Challa’s flask.

He learns that James Kirby is in veterinary medicine. He like dogs; he loves cats but has room for neither in his life. He lost his arm in an accident. He doesn’t remember how. T’Challa does not push.

“So, see you around I guess.” James says shyly despite the wreck of his throat and the damp between his thighs. His kiss tastes like jizz and cane liquor and T’Challa promises, “next time” in spite of himself. James looks absurdly pleased at the answer but as they prepare to go downstairs, the young man holds T’Challa back and says seriously, “You don’t want people to get the wrong impression.”

Ice layers his insides.

“They will have one regardless.”

James looks down at his feet.

“But your girlfriend, won’t she mind?” He asks. “You two seemed kind of... tight.” The nervous half-smile only serves to solidify what they’ve done. T’Challa tucks two-hundred dollars in James’ jacket and straightens his collar.

“Rachel is not my girlfriend.”  He corrects sternly.

James looks down at his hands in confusion. A shoulder lifts in a self-depreciating shrug before he makes out what the other man was about to say.

“I’ve seen all kinds man. It’s fine. But I’ll go first okay? Just count to one hundred before you follow. Humor me.”

“It’s already past midnight.”

James cracks a wry grin.

“A pumpkin is better than no pumpkin.”

T’Challa turns around and counts to one hundred.

When he goes downstairs, his hosts are too indisposed to take notice of his state. In the mirror, a bartender’s polite indifference, he sees that his mouth is bruised. His body is sore in a way it hasn’t been since training. He readjusts his shirt and spots a scrap of yellow beneath his heels. He picks it up and recognizes that it’s James’ tie. It’s ugly and he’d be doing the world a service if he flushed it down the toilet. But he doesn’t. He rolls it up and puts in his pocket all the way home.

Nareema swans in to greet him and with a designer’s drama, swears “Ugh, if I wanted to kill brain cells, I’d sniff glue.”

T’Challa scowls when the lights come on and she spots a hickey that does not match his date, the girl with an oil baron for a father and dreams of becoming a media darling.

“Will this be a problem?” Nareema asks neutrally.

He does not take offense. It’s her job.

“No.”


	2. Chapter 2

It’s just sex. Release. It cannot be anything else and even if it could be, his people come first. Wakanda comes first. James is unorthodox and unacceptable as a choice of companion. But his excuses wear thin when T’Challa cannot stop thinking about him and his red mouth, the weight of his fatted length in his palms.

The yellow tie glares at him from the backseat. He shouldn’t have kept it. It’s ugly. Bright yellow with a chain pattern stitched across top in a deeper color. Anyone who willingly wears it is either colorblind or is a power ranger.

T’Challa is neither but he keeps it in the car with a sundry of objects Nareema threatens to set on fire. A week after James, he decides he has to return the tie.

Bast must be smiling down on him because he does not have to go far. He finds James accosted by a senior student. No one intervenes. Others give them a wide berth like ripples around stone in the middle of a stream. James ducks his head and the older student whispers harshly in his ear, tugging him along like a fish on a line and T’Challa cannot let that stand.

He wrenches the man off of James, digging his fingers into some very important pressure points. The man lets go with a silent cry, bent at the knees.

“James. Is this man bothering you?”

James looks at him as though he’s seen a ghost. Color drains from his already transparent face. T’Challa frowns. The bags under his eyes could carry a corpse. He snaps out of it when the man struggles, twitching in his grip and James throws a sucker punch at his mouth.

“Fuck!”

The man shouts and the expletive echoes throughout the square.

James mutters a quick, “oh shit.” And pulls him along in a brutal pace that even he has difficulty following and he has ran alongside his uncle the Black Panther in the jungle.

As soon as they are out of range of campus police, James lets go with an apology. Which was a shame because he likes James’ hand. It is a nice hand.

“I’m so sorry.” James pleads. “I didn’t mean for you to see that. Sorry.”

He gives T’Challa a wobbly smile. “How’ve you been man?”

T’Challa does not know what to say to that. It’s obvious something has happened to the young man. It’s in his voice, his face, the way he stands like one leg is shorter than the other. The general awkwardness like he can’t wait to get out of his skin. The straps on his backpack are loose. It’s obviously new.

“Are you alright?”

James stares as though the thought has never occurred to him.

“I’m fine. Thanks for, thanks for you know.”

James is thin. Confidence shaved. A stiff breeze could knock him over.

T’Challa holds out a hand.

“If you’re not busy, would you like to join me for lunch?”

 

They are in his car. It’s cramped and neither of them are small to begin with. He cracks open a window when the tension becomes such that he can chew on it. James looks at him sharply, rakes him with eyes the color of a still pond but is no longer still.

Ignition fires and the engine roars to life. A hand drags along the inseam of his trousers and he says firmly, “Don’t.”

“Yeah.” James grants with half a smile tilting his face. “But I’m hungry now.”

T’Challa lets out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. Both hands planted firmly on the steering wheel. The car purrs beneath him, idling as they wait for the signal to change. And as the red switches to green, James goes down on him.

He nearly wraps them around a tree.

James sucks with a vengeance like he really is starving. The safety belt cuts him off at the waist and he is simultaneously grateful and wants to cut it off because the younger man is entirely at the wrong angle for it to be comfortable, gagging and aggressive with teeth. Cheeks hollowed like he can think of nothing else but swirling his tongue around the head of his cock before flattening it under, tracing the thick vein that he can’t quite follow, but T’Challa rocks up to him all the same, trying to avoid the traffic cams because this is not something he wants on front page news. James moans in delight with every shift and turn, when his knees jerk badly enough to press accelerator on a yellow light. Faint honks of protests peter off as he speeds by. He manages to unstick his right hand to card through James’ hair, tugging at the short strands above his neck, matted with sweat.

James whimpers when T’Challa touches him behind the ears. The bruises have long since faded but the skin still retains its marks when he presses down. He hastily pulls into the first diner he can find and plants his feet where he can’t drive his car through a wall. The world narrows down to slick sounds and James’ plush lips. T’Challa yanks back on James’ hair and says, “Let me, on your face.” And James hastily replies, “Yeah, yeah, do it.”

He grips the base of his cock and imagines if they had time, if they had more elbow room. How magnificent James had looked on his knees and how much better he would be spread across his thousand-thread bed sheets. Sparks shoot down his spine and James lets out a helpless whimper, his tongue flicking out, still hungry, and that’s what does it for him as he comes.  

 

“I’m not a hooker.” James says by a way of disclaimer as he spears a piece of bacon.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’m not a hooker. This pretty woman thing you’ve got going on, you don’t need to do it. I’m a sure thing.”

“I see.” T’Challa says.

Moisture remains on James’ face after he cleans himself in the diner bathroom. Water clings to his eyelashes making his face look softer, lips fuller and eyes smoky with color yet undiscovered. His dick twitches in renewed interest and he thinks that he should have anticipated the results given James’ generous interpretation of social interaction. A part of him has still not caught up with what happened in the car. His spine lacks the structural integrity to keep him upright and he’s certain that the only thing keeping him together is public scrutiny. He’s unconvinced their lunch isn’t foreplay and that this is not a dream soon to be ruined by the morning alarm.

“You took the money.” He says. “I assumed there was transaction.”

James looks around guiltily. The only other person at the diner is a waitress picking through Maxim magazine and an odd couple whom he assumes are conducting a deal of their own. There is no need for subterfuge in the dilapidated diner yet James looks nervous. He can hardly believe this is the same boy who propositioned to him at a charity event.

“I had bills to pay and uh, well. I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again.” There is a weight to the last sentence like James means it. It’s not a comment on the size of their campus or their social spheres but something else. James breaks the stalemate and looks away.  

“And the car?”

“Oh um,” Some of the mischief returns to his features. He licks the milk mustache off his mouth. His lone hand neatly ripping a napkin from its container only to twist at it and ruin it for some unknown needs. He looks better with a side of bacon and eggs in him. T’Challa pushes his stack of flapjacks forward and watches James devour it bite after bite drenched in golden syrup that makes his lips glisten like they had before James wiped it off in the car.

And now James smelled like him. A subtle musky sent in passing. His dick gives another approving jump. Behave. He tells himself. If he had been intrigued by the boy with one arm, he is fascinated now. James industriously apart his food. A great siege of eggs and bacon. Dividing pancakes in two for maximum devastation. He chuckles when James lets out a soft burp.

“That was good.” James says, seemingly surprised.

It was the first parking lot he found and pulled over to fuck James’ throat. But somehow, he doesn’t think the boy needs to hear that. He keeps his council as James crushes ice noisily in his molars, staring at the striped straw like a novelty before noticing his gaze.

“Sorry, I just.”

“Hungry, I know.”

And James laughs, eyes crinkling and he resists the urge to straighten them out because the man’s eyes are clearer when he is laughing, imbued with electricity that might translate as life or even a soul.

“So, how did you know where to find me?”

“What makes you think I was looking for you?” He asks, raising an eyebrow.

James hums.

“Unless international politics moved into cardiology, I doubt you were there for class.”

“Guilty as charged.” T’Challa lets his teeth show. “I wished to return this.

He slides the yellow tie across the table.

James stares at it in confusion.

“Hey, that’s my tie. You kept it?” A conflict of emotions flits across his face. “Why?”

“It was stuck on the bottom of my shoe.” T’Challa said. “If you’d like, I can replace it.”

“No, it’s just. You _remembered_ me.”

“You made quite the impression.”

“Oh.” James says. “Thank you.”

James takes the tie. He doesn’t put it in his backpack to throw away later as T’Challa might have done. He treats it with reverence as he turns it over, dragging a nail across the frayed stitching and ruined cloth, and ties it around his wrist.

“So I don’t forget.”

And it’s strange. T’Challa feels like they’re having two different conversations.

But James is smiling again and T’Challa does not want to press. Not yet. He takes a napkin and scrawls down a number. He even foregoes his usual, florid script to make out the numbers in block font.

“My number.” He tells James. “In case you need something.”

James looks away.

“Why, why would I call you? You’ve done a lot for me already. You don’t know me.”

T’Challa shrugs.

“I do not have many friends here. I would be honored if you considered me one.”

“Friends with benefits?” James asks, tracing a pattern in the tie.

“If you’d like.”

“Why?”

“You intrigue me.” T’Challa says honestly.

“It’s the hooker thing isn’t it?”

“A bit.” T’Challa admits. “But it is a rare person who does not ask for my father’s influence.”

“Won’t your father mind though? You probably have guards right? What will they think if they see something like me with you?”

T’Challa flattens his lips. James flinches and backs away. “I sorry.”

“Wakanda does not place limitations such as sexuality or race on love. You would not be persecuted; I would not let you.”

“Really?”

Hope is painfully obvious in James’ voice. He has been ill-used.

“If you wish. I will not force you into a relationship with me cordial or otherwise.”

James snorts.

“I’m pretty sure it’s not my sparkling conversational skills that’s keeping you around.”

“Perhaps I like that about you. You are... spontaneous.”

“That’s me. Spontaneous.” James suddenly cuts off. He looks like he has more to say but has become distracted by light on the window. “Hey um, I have classes in the afternoon. Do you mind giving me a ride back?”

“Of course.” He nods. James probably expected a lunch around campus. Not an impromptu trip down a highway. T’Challa grimaces briefly. He expects many angry calls from Nareema. “What is it?” He asks curiously when James pulls on his sleeve.

“I uh...” James sighs. “I don’t have a phone, but if you need to reach me. I’m always at the school library from five to eight.”

He’s lying.

“I’ll find you.” T’Challa says and that is a promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] Please note this fic is set in the nineties. Does anyone remember the nineties?  
> [2] Where is Nareema. She would never put up with this nonsense.

**Author's Note:**

> [1] Man, don’t you love it when your porn demands a plot?  
> [2] Also, porn is hard. Stick with T rating from now on *_________*  
> [3] I'm in a different time zone. Let me update my stories in my time zone.  
> [4] Chapter 1's been rewritten for porn purposes. I mean plot.


End file.
